Inquiry-Based Science Education: Applying it in the ...

1 Guide for teachers final Inquiry-Based Science education : Applying it in the Classroom Methodological Guide Edith Saltiel 1 Preamble: Out of the twelve European countries taking part in the pollen project, some have been experimenting with Inquiry-Based Science education in primary school for several years now, while others have chosen to develop research on the form of education itself. The experience gained on both sides, obstacles encountered and research findings can only be helpful to all of the countries involved in the project. This document, intended for primary education teachers in all twelve countries, aims to help set up this form of education , clearly defining what Inquiry-Based Science education entails and offering tools derived from those created by certain countries.

2 I. Basic principles behind the Inquiry-Based approach 1 The need to take ownership of the initial question In order for a child to actually aim to solve a problem, the problem needs to have a meaning for the child, and he or she needs to have taken part, to whatever extent possible, in developing it; in short, the problem needs to become the child s own, so that he or she has the desire to solve it. Imagine that a teacher wants children to work on hourglasses (observing, understanding, building, etc.) and try to identify the parameters that determine how long the sand will take to fall. Several different options exist: a) The teacher shows the students an hourglass and states that the time required for the sand to run out depends on [.]

3 ] and that the students are going to be able to see this for themselves. This method is akin to the traditional, so-called lecture-type format, in which the teacher is content to pronounce results, and it is worlds away from an Inquiry-Based approach. b) The students observe, draw and describe an hourglass set on the teacher s desk, then the teacher asks them what factors determine how long it takes for the sand to run out. This question is meaningful to most of the students, but not to all of them. c) After having observed an hourglass, the teacher asks the students how to increase or decrease the time required for the sand to run out. Here, the child starts to come up with questions as he or she looks for a way to make something happen.

4 D) The teacher sets out at least three hourglasses, one of which takes much more time than the others to run out of sand. The students, divided into groups, observe, draw and describe the hourglass they have in front of them. Considering the distinctive features of the hourglasses set before them, one will continue to have sand running, while the others will have stopped. The children will take notice of this and instinctively wonder what makes that hourglass run longer. This is one way (though not the only one) to have children take ownership of a problem. 1 The author is grateful to Jean-Pierre Sarmant for his comments and suggestions. His expertise contributed unique and invaluable support for the preparation of this document.

5 2 The need for individual experimentation Experimentation here does not mean complicated experiments involving sophisticated and costly equipment. The reader will see that the experiments listed are in fact very simple and require nothing more than ordinary, inexpensive equipment. The sample activities listed on the pollen site are a good example of what can be done by children. Children have very good recollection of the experiments they conduct themselves. In addition, very early on, they have ideas about a number of phenomena. Most often, it is not enough to tell them that a given experiment will yield a given outcome (without doing the experiment or just showing it to them), or to tell them that what they think is full of mistakes.

6 They need to reach this realisation themselves, hence the need to let them test the experiments they have come up with themselves (provided that this can be done in a classroom setting) and let them substantiate their methods amongst themselves. Here are two examples: a) In the hourglass example, the children might consider the amount of sand, the width of the glass, the size of the sand particles, the size of the hourglass, the presence of certain colour additives, etc. There is nothing quite like leaving the children to carry out the experiments themselves so that they realise they can achieve useable results only if they adjust one parameter at a time (keeping the others constant) and that, taking that into consideration, the size of the hourglass does not play an important part.

7 B) The following example is derived from work carried out in Bergerac (Dordogne, France). During the academic year 1998-1999, two teachers (A and B) worked with their CE2 classes (eight-year-olds) on melting point and solidification and, specifically, on the temperature at which melting occurs in ice. The two teachers, who had taken part in the same training course on the topic, conducted their classes differently. Two years later, the students were asked the following question: What is the minimum temperature required for ice to melt? Here are the results: Answers School A School B 3 C or more 83% 36% Between 1 C and 2 C 13% 63% Other 4% 1% Comparing the above answers with the experiment notebooks, it becomes apparent that most of the students in Class B reported the result they found two years earlier when they conducted their own experiments, hence the spread between 1/3 and 2/3, which did not occur with the Class A students.

8 Actually, Class B s teacher had the students work in groups, each group trying to measure at different moments the temperature of the ice. In addition, those students were given the opportunity to repeat the experiment after checking their initial results, while Class A s teacher performed the experiment only one time, on a table, with students coming up one after another to write down the temperature. This outcome illustrates the extent to which the knowledge students gain on their own, by carrying out experiments themselves, is important and remains engraved in their memory. 3 You can see only what you strive to see In other words, in order to see something, you need to know what you are trying to look at.

9 Many studies have shown this very effectively. We will list four examples: - The first involves a future primary school teacher who, in her last year of training, was asked to write a paper on the education -related topic of her choice. She chose the subject observation , recalling her own experience as a student. During a school field trip, she had been instructed to find fossils. She came back empty-handed because she did not know what she was supposed to look for, having no idea what a fossil might be. - The second involves a teacher2 who wanted to show the children that a candle placed under a bowl would burn longer if the bowl was larger. The teacher took three bowls of different sizes and explained to the children how to put them over the candles at the same time.

10 Everything went well. Yet, when the teacher asked them what difference they had noticed between the bowls, he was disappointed to hear them say: None. They were all the same. All of the candles went out . Clearly, not a single a child had noticed what the teacher had hoped they would see. The students would have reacted differently had they first noted that the candle went out, then observed the three bowls, each over a candle, and been instructed to note whether the three candles went out at the same time. - The third is not really specific to primary school children. Many adults have seen and marvelled at rainbows. If you ask them what order the colours are in, only a very small percentage will tell you that the colours are inverted.